


northern hunter

by ninemoons42



Series: Dragon Age Inquisition - Kiriya - Original Flavor [8]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Boss Fight, Dragon Fight, Gen, Male-Female Friendship, Teamwork
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-16
Updated: 2015-09-16
Packaged: 2018-04-21 02:49:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4812101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninemoons42/pseuds/ninemoons42
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inquisitor Kiriya Trevelyan fights a dragon -- and she's not alone when she does it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	northern hunter

Impact.

Rough ground: rocks digging into the palms of her hands. Where had her knives gone? She could hear the blood roaring in her ears, or was that the dragon shrieking somewhere behind her? Warmth trickling between her leathers and her sleeves. Her hip throbbed with pain. Blue blue sky overhead -- what were they thinking, challenging a dragon?

Over the screams of the dragon she could hear Cassandra bellowing: curses and war cries and rough encouragement. 

Kiriya pushed herself to her feet and then dropped flat to the ground once again -- gravel biting into the skin of her cheeks -- as the Northern Hunter’s tail whipped madly from side to side.

 _Tail, tail -- THINK!_ She could get it out of the way and stop the dragon from using it as a weapon. Or should she go for one of the hind legs? 

Shouts on the battlefield, other voices joining Cassandra’s. Kiriya could still remember the plan they’d come up with: she had to attack the dragon’s back while it was distracted by Cassandra and Vivienne, who were assaulting it from the front. Of Dorian there was no sign except for the phantom shadows that danced continually before the dragon’s face -- so he had to be well, _he had to be_ , and now they needed her to keep doing her part.

Here were her knives. Here was the flask she carried on her person, something particularly dark and viscous and nasty in it. She’d been warned against spilling a drop by the woman she’d purchased it from -- and even as she carefully pulled out the cork she winced at the liquid that hissed and bubbled within.

She poured the liquid onto her blades.

She took a deep breath and drew silence around herself, the world around her going blurry and indistinct as she sank into the hidden breaths between moments. 

Here was her chance -- and Kiriya began to scream as she threw herself at the dragon, as she scrambled up its tail -- almost sliding off those cursed scales -- and she could hear the frantic heartbeat of the dragon. Or was it hers, pounding deafeningly in her ears? It didn’t matter, it didn’t matter -- she had to focus -- here was a wound in the dragon’s back, and she blessed Cassandra and Vivienne and Dorian for fighting so hard, and she gritted her teeth and swung her blades down, one after the other.

Beneath her feet the dragon froze -- she threw herself towards the nearest patch of smooth-looking ground and got more gravel in her wounds for her efforts -- and now, now, the poison must be doing its job for the dragon was keening in pain -- gone the lightning bolts and still its wings -- 

Its wings!

Back up on her feet! Kiriya dashed forward and began hacking away at skin and scale and bone. She opened great gashes in the dragon’s wing, screaming and screaming until she had no breath left in her.

Sizzle and hiss of magic -- was that Vivienne? -- she was once more protected behind a magical barrier and Kiriya redoubled her assault on the dragon -- 

“ _LOOK OUT!_ ”

Teeth, eyes, claws -- that was the dragon’s face, why was she looking at the dragon’s face -- 

Cassandra, still screaming: “Kiriya!”

Plan, plan, plan! She screamed back: “I’m going to try for its eyes!”

Dorian was yelling at her, she could hear him, but she couldn’t understand him -- he must have lapsed into his mother tongue -- and Kiriya put him firmly out of her mind. She stood upon the dragon’s shoulder and faced its baleful gaze with a glare of her own -- a glare that gave way to a mocking smile as she leapt forward.

The stink of scorched air and earth all around, and the bright crackling light flaring up between the dragon’s jaws --

Kiriya leapt forward and up, the dragon’s eyes following her with avid rage -- 

She couldn’t forget the dragon’s horns -- this was not the appointed day of her death, and she would not find the end of her life on those wickedly sharp things! She would live! They all would! They only needed to keep working together -- she only had to trust the others -- 

The dragon roared and whipped its head back and Kiriya stabbed it in the underside of its jaw when she’d been aiming for its face -- the bright blast of lightning speared up into the sky, into the blinding blue.

More shouts, more crackling magic, and the unmistakable _clang clang clang_ of Cassandra’s sword.

Again and again Kiriya sank her blades into the dragon’s throat, screaming with every hit.

Flash of movement above her -- she threw up a hand and she could just make out the headdress, the blue glow of a Knight-Enchanter’s sword.

“Die.” One word, spoken so calmly. Such force beneath it. The shape of Vivienne, proud and powerful and balanced so perfectly upon the dragon’s bellowing rage -- Kiriya watched with her heart in her mouth as Vivienne turned her sword so that it was pointing straight down, and then drove it straight into the dragon’s head.

The dragon began to scream and thrash and again Kiriya was thrown clear off her feet -- this time she fetched up against the almost familiar shape of Cassandra’s shield and she was grateful for the other woman’s instincts, pulling her behind its protection. 

“Hold on!” Cassandra screamed.

And still Kiriya peered around the edge of the shield, searching for the others.

Vivienne! Somehow the woman was still standing, somehow out of reach of the dragon’s death throes, and Kiriya couldn’t miss the sweat and the satisfaction on her face.

A long, long roar that shattered into echoes and sudden silence.

“Andraste’s tits! Is it dead?”

Kiriya rolled out from behind Cassandra’s shield, just as the dragon’s head met the earth for the last time -- a mighty impact -- she kept her feet, this time, and reached out a hand to a shocked Dorian.

“I do believe we’ve managed to kill it.” But Vivienne was not smirking: she looked on the dragon with solemn eyes. 

“We’ll have to train better,” Cassandra said as she joined them -- and Kiriya winced at her friend’s wounds, the bruised right side of her face, the way she tottered forward and then fell to one knee, clinging to her sword to stay upright.

Clink of glass from close by. “Drink this,” Dorian said, offering her a potion.

Kiriya shook her head. “I’ll -- I’ll manage. Focus on Cassandra.”

“I am all right, Inquisitor -- ” Cassandra began.

Kiriya raised an eyebrow at her, and turned Dorian in the other woman’s direction. “When you’re well enough to get back on your feet, then he can look after me.”

“I must say, Inquisitor, life with you is seldom _plain_ ,” Vivienne murmured. 

“Thanks, I think.”

Kiriya watched her walk away, poised as ever -- but soon she returned to contemplating the dragon and something in her shuddered. Pure animal fear, the fear of a prey animal -- how was she going to explain this to Josephine, to Leliana -- to _Cullen_ \--

“Hey, you.” 

Kiriya looked up, and tried on a smile, and Dorian gave her a slightly sardonic one in return. “No need to be afraid now that dragon’s just a heap of -- I don’t know, things you can take back to Skyhold.”

“We could have died, fighting it with just a sketch of a plan.”

“Yes, well, we could have -- but here’s the thing, we didn’t. We wouldn’t be having this conversation otherwise.”

“And the question is, how did we even manage it?”

She watched him chew his lip for a moment. “Luck. Skill. The fact that it was all of us. You and me and Cassandra and Madame de Fer.” He paused, and then took her hand. “It isn’t just you, you know. Normally I fight alone. Fair guess most people do. But -- _you’re_ not alone, are you?”

Kiriya made a face. “I keep telling people that.”

Dorian laughed. “Then it’s a dose of your own medicine you’re getting. It’s not that bad, is it?”

“No, no, I suppose it’s not,” and she leaned her head on his shoulder, just for a moment. “Thank you.”

“Always here for you, dear. Now let’s hurry back to that camp. I don’t want to stay near that dragon for longer than I have to.”

“Doesn’t contribute much to the landscape, does it?”

“No, but it’ll make a great story. That’s what it is.”

“Varric will be angry he missed this one.”

“Varric? You can tell him the story. The Bull’s going to mope.”

“Cheer him up,” Kiriya laughed.

“Ugh,” Dorian said, grinning.

That night, she wrapped a small dragon scale in a piece of her torn sleeve, and set it aside in her pack. Something for Cullen. A gift, for when she came home.

**Author's Note:**

> No Cullen in this one, but he'll appear in the next installment, as he reacts to this particular tale.
> 
> I am also on [tumblr](http://ninemoons42.tumblr.com/) and my Dragon Age: Inquisition blog is [here](http://ninemoons42-inquisition.tumblr.com/).


End file.
